Frank Castle (Earth-200111)
(Mar. 2004)'' | PlaceOfBirth = Brooklyn, New York | Creators = Garth Ennis; Darick Robertson | First = Born #1 | Death = Punishermax #22 | HistoryText = Frank grew up on the streets of Brooklyn. At the age of ten he witnessed one of the events that would form his future as the Punisher. The youngest son of a local crime boss named Albert Rosa, Vincent Rosa made a habit of raping the local school girls knowing that his father's power over the people around him would ensure his safety. It wasn't until a school friend of Frank's, Lauren Buvoli was given the same treatment and committed suicide, that Frank took his father's gun and set out to deal with Vincent. However, after tracking Vincent down he witnessed his long and gruesome murder at the hands of Lauren's brother, Sal Buvoli. Frank spent four years of his later life in the Vietnam War. It was on his third and final tour in 1971 that he witnessed the most pivotal event in his life. As the Captain of a small unit of soldiers at Firebase Valley Forge, he had never had a KIA in combat. He murdered fellow officers around the base. This occurred in two cases, the first of which was General Paddon who he killed in order to prevent the closure of the Firebase. The second occurred when one of his men, McDonald attempted to rape an injured female North Vietnamese soldier. Frank then killed him by drowning him in a nearby lake. A voice continuously spoke to Frank offering the chance to fight an eternal war, and also told him that there would be a price. When the Firebase was being attacked by North Vietnamese soldiers, whilst at the same time it was being assaulted by napalm from American jets, Frank finally said yes to the voice's offer. A while after the bombardment American troops landed on the ruins of Valley Forge and were astonished to find Frank as the sole survivor. When Frank arrived home, he met his family at the airport only to be confronted by the voice one last time as he began to talk about the price. Just as this was said, Frank saw a skull-shaped reticule around his family. In 1976, Frank and his family had a picnic in Central Park. While there a shootout began between two rival criminal groups. In the crossfire Frank's wife, daughter and son were all killed and he was badly wounded. Some time later Frank began his war on crime under the alias of The Punisher. Frank voluntarily gave himself up to the Police and was sent to Ryker's Island Prison. However, this was a ploy in seeking to finally kill his family's murderers that were imprisoned there during a prison riot he incited. | Powers = The Punisher possess no superhuman powers. | Abilities = Frank is an accomplished Recon Marine. | Strength = The Punisher possesses the normal human strength of a 6'1" 210-pound man, who engages in with intense physical exercise. Frank engages in a brutal regimen of calisthenics, katas and firing range practice daily, maintaining his combat skills as he does not drink alcohol or do drugs. | Weaknesses = | Equipment = Military equipment as appropriate | Transportation = Many vehicles | Weapons = The Punisher employs a vast array of conventional firearms including machine guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives, explosives and other weapons culled from common and organized criminals and military sources during his operations. A vast majority of his weapons have roots in military forces around the world, and typically employs weapons and accessories limited to military operations. The Punisher often customizes his weapons for greater effectiveness with both standard and custom items including magnified optics, reflex sights, night vision scopes, flashlights, grenade launchers, sound and flash suppressors, bipods, high-capacity magazines and drums and various ammunition including hollow point or armor piercing bullets. | Notes = *The MAX Imprint of the Punisher ages in real time, propelling him into his late 50s. The cover of issue #44 reveals that he was born on February 16, 1950, but was later removed during the book's publication. He has a well-maintained physical condition and health despite of his age. The imprint also depicts the Punisher as having been an active vigilante for almost 30 years. Issue #19 specified he had killed approximately 2,000 people, not including military personnel or the deaths in a story in which the Punisher causes a hydrogen bomb to be dropped onto the Pacific island Grand Nixon, where a General Kriegkopf has gathered 2,000 mercenaries, including the assassin known as The Russian . *Whereas the traditional Punisher stories remained within the United States and involved antagonists and settings of conventional domestic crime, stories of the Marvel MAX Punisher often focus on current events, ranging from corporate fraud to sex slavery and most commonly the War on Terror. Characters in these stories are all products of past or current environments, including operatives of the CIA, KGB, MI6, SAS and various militaries and militias from the Balkans and Middle East and terrorist cells like the IRA, all with agendas rooted in past conflicts like the Cold War or the Yugoslav wars. *In the miniseries Born, by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Castle's roots are traced back to Vietnam, during his third tour of duty in Vietnam, where he undergoes a psychological and possibly supernatural transformation into the Punisher in order to survive a massive assault on his fortification by the combined forces of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The one-shot ''Punisher: The Tyger'', by Ennis and John Severin, went even further and showed that Castle had lived with murders, deaths and criminals his entire life. | Trivia = | Wikipedia = The Punisher: Frank Castle | Links = * Punisher Volume 6 a.k.a. Punisher MAX }}